After last season’s 5-13 conference record, the ACC media and fans of NC State were expecting this year’s team to compete in the top half of the ACC a[See the full post at: Gott Justifiably on the Hot Seat]

Funny – once switched from a playing style that was more plodding, physical and athletic to one that emphasized skills – Sendek enjoyed success and for all of his faults, I got the impression he had a plan – and did a decent job executing it. Even his 10th year – which as you correctly note – fell apart towards the end – was a testament to this process as the team went 10-6 and won in the round of 64 in the NCAAs.

The next year looked daunting, but who knows how it would have turned out with him at the helm.

OTOH – with Gott – every year it seems like we are throwing a lineup together and you just don’t know what we’ll have. He has proven successful at assembling talent – but that’s only half the battle.

He is losing this other half. You want to know your prior year’s reserves will be this year’s starters. We actually saw Warren, and even Vandenberg do this. We saw Cat take it to the next level.

The turnover under Gott has been so extreme that we have really lost out on the Cam, Scooters, Cliff Crawford’s, CJ Williams, Marcus Melvin’s of the world.

Barring the miraculous, he’s not doing nearly good enough for it to even be a hard question. If we care about our program in the least, a change will have to be made. The coaching and effort are noticeably poor. It’s at an unacceptable level.

How so? These are Gott’s last 2 years. Granted, the year isn’t over yet and the ACC is extra tough. Of course, some might say “other coaches had a tough schedule too pal!”

Seriously though – he is in Year 6 and his results have tailed off – just like they did at Bama. This development shouldn’t surprise anyone with an IQ above 80 since he wasn’t fired from Alabama for his off court issues alone.

One of the lessons of the HWSNBN road to purgatory was – to me – that MG’s “mulligan year” came with a very big asterisk. He needed to convince me and then some. NOT squeak by.

Which is why I am fine saying he is finished and buried at this point.

Winning out would be like a 1 in 2,000 probability event (do the math yourself), and that just gets us to 10-8. Not good enough with the talent we have, coming off such a stinker season, and having created so much bad juju this December and January.

What about if we randomly won the ACCT? We definitely have the talent and depth to do it, and the tourney setting seems to masks our issues with lack of preparation, etc.

Just ask yourself how much UConn has done since their miracle tourney run. Jack squat.

Vawolf82: That section was referencing each coach’s last 5 seasons. For Gott that would be years 2-6 hence 3 NCAAS and only 1 S16. I was trying to highlight how much better Sendek did during that timeframe yet still was under major fire from the fanbase. So of course Gott deserves to be on the hot seat as well since his most recent 5 years are worse than Sendek’s.

I fully expect yet another wholesale exodus out of the program this year, leaving a skeleton crew to return next year. And I would expect those that leave will do what others have done, that is to imply strongly that Gottfried was untruthful to them in recruiting and that he has mis-managed the team. It is inevitable.

It is clear that Gottfried did not instill high expectations of the team and in individual players. His “cool jacket” comment should have come after the first couple of games when it was clear that this was a lackadaisical squad with no leadership on or beside the court.

Then there is his long running philosophy the defense is an afterthought. No one expects NC State to be Tony Bennett’s UVA redux, but the standing around watching team after team after team take open shots is completely unacceptable. It shows a lack of effort, and a lack of a will to win.

Given that these problems have existed for years, one can reasonably expect that another year or two won’t see any changes.

Debbie Yow has got to make a choice: is she going to do her job, or is she going to continue to enjoy her working retirement and leave this problem to her replacement. Hiding behind “the next AD should choose their own coach” is another way of saying that she wants to collect a paycheck and shirk her responsibilities. And that too is unacceptable.